Injera is a staple of Ethiopian cuisine — here is how it's made and how to eat it

• Insider producer Medha Imam meets up with her Ethiopian friend Rania Sheikh at Brooklyn's Awash to try the Ethiopian staple: injera.
• The pair see how injera is made on a traditional round hot plate.

• Producer Medha interviews co-owners and chefs of Awash about injera and some of the difficulties they come across when trying to emulate traditional dish.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Medha Imam: Injera is a porous, spongelike sourdough bread that is quite literally the foundation of Ethiopian cuisine. It's made out of teff, the smallest grain in the world, and it doubles as both a plate and silverware in many Ethiopian meals.

Medha: Woo!

Romeo Regalli: There you go, look at that!

Medha: Oh my god!

Medha: Today, we're going to explore injera and Ethiopian cuisine in general with my friend Rania, who's originally from Ethiopia. I'm really excited, we're gonna head to one of the few places in Brooklyn that serves this cuisine, so let's take a look. But before we do, here's a little information that you need to know.

Medha: Originating in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea, injera is thousands of years old. The strongest evidence of injera cooking dates back to at least 600 AD, when the first mitads, or traditional round hot plates, were found in excavations of the ancient city of Aksum. Today, injera is the base of nearly every Ethiopian meal and is typically topped with numerous vegetable and meat dishes. It starts off with teff, a nutritious, gluten-free grain originally grown in the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Awash, an Ethiopian restaurant, is one place that serves injera and Ethiopian cuisine in New York City.

Medha: So, we've made our way to Awash in Brooklyn, and I'm here with my friend Rania, who is originally from Ethiopia. Rania, thank you for joining us.

Rania Sheikh: Thank you for having me. I am super excited that we're gonna try some Ethiopian food today.

Medha: Awesome. So, we're gonna try those out today, and let's go inside.

Rania: Let's do it. Medha: We met up with Awash's co-owners and partners, Romeo and Milka Regalli. Romeo hails from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and Milka grew up in a predominantly Ethiopian community in the Bronx.

Romeo: When people go to an Ethiopian restaurant, they have to go with an open mind. You have to be open to try different things; you have to be open to eating with your hands.

Milka Regalli: So, this is the batter, and we're just gonna make injera. You mix it with water to create this batter, let it ferment for about three days, and then we use the mitad, which is a flat pan, it's about 500 degrees, to make the injera.

Medha: Underneath, the injera cooks from the bottom while small holes begin to dot the surface.

Milka: Injera is naturally gluten-free. What we serve here is a mix of gluten and teff.

Romeo: The reason why we mix it with wheat flour is because teff is very expensive. We would be out of business if we just serve teff. But we do provide that for people who, you know, ask for it.

Rania: The gluten-free part is pretty funny because I think Ethiopian food has become so mainstream because of the gluten-free aspect of injera, but also because so much of the main dishes are actually also vegetarian. So, it's, like, gluten-free. It's vegetarian. It's basically every, like, millennial's dream.

Romeo: Right. Medha: This looks a little different than some of the injera I've had before. It's, like, a darker color.

Romeo: Because that's the 100% teff.

Medha: Oh!

Rania: So good.

Medha: Mm. Once cooked, injera is topped with vegetable and meat dishes like yater kik alecha, made from yellow split peas; gomen, a stew of collard greens; atakilt, a mix of cabbage, carrot, and potatoes; shiro, a spicy chickpea dish; and doro wot, a chicken dish cooked with ginger, garlic, hard-boiled eggs and berbere, an Ethiopian blend of 30 different spices.

Medha: Woo! Romeo: There you go, look at that!

Medha: Oh, my God! That looks amazing.

Romeo: And then I'll bring the injera on the side. All right?

Rania: Perfect.

Rania: If you want something, in Ethiopian cuisine, you wouldn't say I wanna eat injera, you would say I wanna eat shiro, or kikil, or misir, or doro wot, and then, the assumption is it comes with injera. Right? So it's like if you say I want a turkey sandwich, it comes in a sandwich, or in bread. All right. So, basically, as you can see, it's all on one giant plate, and you can see all the different little foods that we cooked earlier, and you take some fresh injera, cut a little piece, and then start digging. So good.

Medha: Satisfaction.

Rania: So, typically, when you scoop something up you just wanna scoop it with the injera without touching the actual sauce, and if you successfully scoop it you just put the injera on top and you grab from the corner, and you just pick it right up, and it's like a little triangle in your hand. And then when you eat it, you eat it in a way where you're not putting your hand in your mouth, really, you're just kinda dropping the injera in your mouth.

Medha: OK. Rania: So it's like...

Medha: Oh, OK, I'm gonna scoop it. Like this, right?

Rania: Pretty good to me. So, what's the verdict?

Medha: It's so good. Immediately after the shiro taste, you could taste the sourness of the injera itself.

Rania: Yeah. Sometimes in Ethiopian culture, people would, like, pick up, like, a bit of food in their hands and then they would feed it to someone else, and it's called gursha, but it's a sign of love and respect. You do this to someone you love. The Ethiopian culture is generally very community-based, so when you eat like this on one giant plate with all of your family members, it's because you're pretty close. It's supposed to mix, that's why they're all on the same plate. How is that?

Medha: It's really good.

Rania: Towards the end of your meal, what you usually do is, you start scooping the injera that's on the plate. So, you see how this is, like, a little bit soggy? Because it's been soaking up all the spices and all the water from the lentil and all the other sauces on the plate. So, eventually, if you're doing this right, your plate should be totally empty and all the injera that's on the plate should also be eaten.

Medha: That's awesome. I think I'm filling up, and I've had such a great time eating this with you and learning so much more about injera and just the Ethiopian community in general. Thank you for joining me.

Rania: Me too, thank you so much for having me. And thanks for letting me eat some food. I think I'm gonna quit my day job and join you. I'm just kidding, I'm not gonna quit my job.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in September 2019.